Monday, May 6, 2013

You know I love a good birthday party. And one of the best parts is coming up with the concept, which thus far has involved a set of carefully edited suggestions offered to the birthday girl so that she is excited about it and I am too.

The most important reason for having the party is of course to spend time with friends and family. But I like the little details too. It's a good excuse to get my creative wheels turning. That may be more of a challenge in the future, or at least less of a big deal, as my girl's come up with their own ideas. This year Audrey passed on a few ideas to land on "remote control car" party. Hmmm... I was working on it--it could be really fun--but then she decided she wanted to go and drive go-karts. "I think they have their own tablecloths, Mom," she said. What?!

So we are on our way to a fun center this year. Can you believe it?! There are fewer opportunities for me to create, but lots of opportunities for a group of kids to have fun, and that's what counts. Whether any of them is actually tall enough or brave enough to drive the go-karts is another story... Maybe we'll all play mini golf instead.

Turns out this simpler approach to her party comes at a good time as it feels like the busiest time of the year. But I still insisted on making invitations. I found these cute "speedway" pocket pinball games here at TinToyArcade (they have a lot of fun stuff), designed a simple two sided card and taped the game to the front. I made some customized labels for the envelope, which we hand delivered, but I think they would mail just fine in a padded envelope.

The pocket game is pretty irresistible! The recipients all ripped it off the card and starting playing with it immediately. Which is probably nothing compared to the wide eyes we'll get when they see the arcade at the fun center. Wish me luck!

7 comments:

Adorable! I was just thinking that it must be time for some Audrey birthday posts. I think her birthday must be very close to my daughter's - she just celebrated her first, and I was very inspired by your attention to detail in your girls' past parties!

Really cute!!! I am organizing a party for my almost 1 year old now and the light bulb finally came on at 9pm last night which means i got no sleep! Haha i love how your invites/ themes are gender neutral!!! Its unexpected since you have all girls but greatly appreciated! What program do you use for your invites? I have an awesome idea in mind but dont want to have to cut, tape, punch, and glue 20 invites... Hope Audreys party is fun!

@GrayColors: My oldest is a bit of a tomboy so the gender neutral thing works well--and so far half the guests she's invited are boys, so there you go! I used to use Microsoft Word or PowerPoint to do my invitations but I've moved over (finally!) to Illustrator! So far so good...but the more mainstream programs still work great.

Oh this is such a clever idea, and the invites look sooo cute!! Sounds like it's gonna be a fun party! I have loved looking through the archives at each of the parties you've done! The details are amazing!